The first-place Detroit Tigers have played 92 games. They lead the Cleveland Indians by a half-game.

Advanced sabermetrics shows that, at this exact pace, the Tigers will finish with 86.282609 wins and 75.717391 losses. They will win the division by 0.88435 games.

That would be unprecedented. To stop it from happening, maybe baseball should just join the club and have a lockout. But then we would be left watching grass grow. Or paint dry. Or ... OK ... I’ll just say it.

Soccer.

Kidding, people. Settle down.

How did the Tigers get to this point? Well, we have a choice. I can write three words about each of the first 92 games of the season, or I can write 92 words (or so) about three reasons the Tigers are in first place.

"This game good" hardly constitutes advanced analysis, so let’s go with the latter:

Justin Verlander is sickOr phat. Or ill. Or dope. Or whatever random word people 25 years younger than I am use these days for "unbelievably good."

Seriously, Verlander is ridiculous. In his past seven starts, he has allowed four earned runs. Total.

In 20 starts, he has allowed zero runs five times, one run five times, two runs twice and three runs seven times. (All those three-run games were in April or May -- please forgive him for being a slow starter.)

In his other start, Verlander allowed six earned runs. But that might have been a typo. Or maybe Brad Penny.

How good is his control? So good that even when he hits a batter, the umpire doesn’t believe it. Really, if he had hit Alcides Escobar any more squarely Sunday, there would have been an exit wound.

Verlander is the best pitcher in baseball. Without him, the Tigers would be in a three-way fight for second place with the White Sox and Twins.

The AL Central is not the AL EastAt this point, the AL Central is not even the AL West.

But the Tigers would be in solid contention (but in third place) in the West. In the East, the Tigers would be in fourth place. Buried. Seven games behind New York and six behind Boston.

Yes, the Tigers have flaws. But every time Phil Coke, Charlie Furbush or "Fill In Name of Fifth Starter Here" takes the mound, remember that every team in the Central is flawed. Just look:

Cleveland isn’t allowed to win anything. (If it were, LeBron would have stayed.)

Every player on the Twins is out for the season. (Seriously, all of them).

The White Sox have a designated hitter with a $9 trillion contract who is hitting 24 points lower than Brandon Inge, has 17 more strikeouts than Austin Jackson and gets booed 10 times as loudly as Ryan Raburn. (That first number is made up, but "24" and "17" are legit, and "10" is pretty close.)

The Tigers are a hair better than those three teams.The Tigers have always been good at somethingWhen the starting pitchers were humming for the Tigers, the bullpen and the offense were having trouble. The bullpen then came around, but by the time the offense got good, the starting pitchers started to struggle a bit. Then the bullpen became a little jumbled up. Whatever.

The Tigers are far from a perfect team.

But they have been good enough in enough areas of the game at one time -- all the time -- to be in first place at the break. Yes, they have the sixth-best record in the American League. But that still makes them the best team in the Central.

At least for now.

Of course, they will have to be a bit better in the second half to win the division.